I am often asked, “What do chiropractors do?” That’s not an easy question to answer. The answer is usually expected to be, “They treat back trouble.” But as alternative medicine practitioners, chiropractors do a lot of things, and they treat a variety of ailments, based largely on a scientifically-invalid vertebral subluxation theory which proposes that nerve interference resulting from a misaligned vertebra or a dysfunctional spinal segment can affect general health.

As a co-host of the Chirobase web site, I frequently answer questions about chiropractic, some of which are published in a section titled “Consumer Strategy/Consumer Protection.” In this post, I’ll focus on these:

Are Subluxations Causing My Health Problems?

Is a Misaligned Atlas Causing My Back Pain?

What is that “Thumper” My Chiropractor Uses on My Back?

How Does a Chiropractor Locate Subluxations?

Should I Let a Chiropractor Adjust My Baby?

Why Is Every Chiropractor’s Treatment Different?

Can Neck Manipulation Cause a Stroke?

Should I Go to a Chiropractic College?

Are There Any Good Chiropractors?

Is It Possible to Reform the Chiropractic Profession?

By far, most of the questions I receive express concern about questionable methods and advice offered in the offices of chiropractors. Many questions are generated by the suspicions of patients who initially visited a chiropractor for treatment of back pain and who were then offered spinal adjustments as a treatment for health problems unrelated to the spine. Patients are often concerned about the expense involved in such care, usually extended over a long period of time, followed by “maintenance care” to correct or prevent “vertebral subluxations” after symptoms have resolved. I generally advise patients to refuse chiropractic care for anything other than a musculoskeletal problem, to seek treatment only when symptoms are present, never pay for treatment in advance, and to discontinue treatment and see an orthopedic specialist if symptoms worsen after a few days or have not subsided after a week or so.

ChiroNexus recently listed the top 10 chiropractic studies of 2013. In my experience, chiropractic studies tend to be of poor quality. A media report says “study shows chiropractic works for X,” and when I look for the study it turns out to be a single case report or an uncontrolled study. When Simon Singh was sued by the British Chiropractic Association for saying chiropractic treatment for certain childhood ailments was bogus, the BCA responded with a list of 29 studies they said provided evidence for their claims. Steven Novella showed that out of 29 studies on the list, only 17 actually constituted evidence for 4 clinical claims, and those 17 were poor quality, cherry-picked, and too weak to support the claims. I have a copy of a chiropractic textbook entitled Somatovisceral Aspects of Chiropractic: An Evidence-Based Approach and there is nothing in it that would qualify as credible evidence to a science-based thinker. Chiropractic commenters on SBM have told us that modern chiropractic rejects the “subluxation” paradigm and relies on evidence, and I am always willing to look at new evidence and give chiropractors another chance to convince me that a reform movement is really underway, so I looked up the top 10 studies and read them. I was not impressed.

Note: This is a long article with mind-numbing details that will not be of interest to most readers. Feel free to scroll down to the Summary section. You can just read the bold-faced headings describing the claims of each study on the way down.

Also note: For those who want more detail, the “Study #” headings are links to the full text when available online, or to the PubMed citation.

I subscribe to American Family Physician, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Academy of Family Physicians. It emphasizes evidence-based medicine and most articles include a table showing strength of evidence ratings for key recommendations for practice. Lately, its scientific rigor has been slipping. I have complained to the editor about several articles whose recommendations were not based on the best science, and I have been consistently ignored.

Acupuncture for Chronic Low Back Pain

A recent article on chronic low back pain recommended acupuncture and gave it an “A” rating corresponding to “consistent, good-quality patient-oriented evidence.” I wrote the following letter to the editor and to the author of the article: (more…)